While my husband and I were visiting
in our hometown, my mother-in-law called me over to my sister's
house and asked me if I planned on coming to dinner that day.
I told her yes. She had the nerve to tell me to make
sure I called first, because my husband's first wife was coming,
and she did not want to upset her! Can you believe that?
Talk about not being a part of the family. This upset my husband
so much, we did not visit for quite some time.

My husband and I have been married
one year. We have a new business, and struggle with money
all the time. Two days before her actual birthday, we gave
my MIL her birthday gift. It cost $30, which is a lot for
us right now. As we were walking out the door, she told my
husband that she knew we would be back on her actual birthday, so
we could bring her another present. What did my husband do?
On her birthday, he ordered a very expensive flower arrangement.
I told my husband that his mother sure knows how to manipulate him.
He didn't talk to me for two days. Last year we bought her
18 kt. gold earrings. Her only comment, "Oh, more earrings."

My husband and I fight over two things.
One is his mother. In August, her new car was stolen and burned
to the ground. She asked us if she could borrow one of our
cars. We loaned her, at first, our old pickup. She didn't
like driving this one, so my husband made me loan her my new car.
I had to drive our junker to work. She was only suppose to
borrow our car until she found a new one. She had our car
for three months. She had the nerve to call me and ask me
if she could keep my car indefinitely. She didn't want to
have to go out and buy a new one and have to make payments and insurance
premiums. In the meantime, my husband and I are struggling
to make our payments and premiums. We have fought, and not
talked for days over this. I feel she uses us and manipulates
my husband. He never sees it. The other day I had to
drive thirty miles to pick up antibiotics for my elderly mother
because she has pneumonia. My husband said I couldn't take
my car because he did not want unnecessary miles on our car.
But his mother can put 400 miles on it to visit her daughter.
I did finally get my car back. How? Behind my back,
my husband bought his mommy a car with funds from our company.
Now, we are a couple of thousand dollars overdrawn, and we need
to pay taxes, payroll, insurance, fuel, etc. I absolutely
HATE this woman.

My mother-in-law just announced a week
ago that she was looking into buying a house just down the street
from us. I about had a coronary (if that's how you spell it).
Not only would she be living alone in that house, which you are
able to view from our porch, but she would live with her pregnant
daughter (my sister in-law who just quit her job and is lazy).
The worst thing is that my husband will not tell her not to move
there! I think she should have at least asked if we would
mind. Blahhh...What do I do? I've only been married for three
months.

***NOTE: Please feel free to respond to this (using our mother-in-law
stories submission page) if you have any advice to share.
Reference this story as "unwanted neighbors" in your response.

I have the Mother-in-law from Mars,
have been married 15 years, and still can't get used to it.
When she first visited our newlywed apartment, I came home to find
the kitchen cabinets rearranged to her way. (I put them back to
my way without saying anything). She "surprised" us with a
visit from out of state on our first wedding anniversary (I overheard
her explaining on the phone - "I'm here visiting, so they wouldn't
have to be alone on their first anniversary"). She has just
moved to my town following my father-in-law's death. I went
grocery shopping for her, got EVERY item on the list. I got
a phone call a little later - she screamed at me that I didn't get
her her sweets! I should know that she needed THOSE (weren't
on the list at all). She moved to a much smaller place, but
insisted that all her stuff from her former home be moved to town
(rakes, shovels, broken appliances) - I had those things put into
storage and she had a screaming fit for not keeping it all (47 boxes
worth) in my basement. She gave my daughter some good china,
but we are NOT to use any of it - it's for after she grows up (10
years away). She has told my husband what a lazy good-for-nothing
wife I am. I work 10 hours/day as a manager outside the home,
am involved in community service, kidstuff, kid homework - and sometimes,
I even rest. But I am a complete dropout at cooking - I don't dirty
up every pan in the house, I don't iron the shirts (they're sent
out), I don't clean the house all by myself (family members are
assigned their jobs), and I don't run around doing anything for
anyone that anyone is capable of doing him/herself. I have
learned over the years to just say: Um, Oh, uh huh, and then just
keep doing what I do, hearing the flack, and then just keep doing
what I do that is meaningful to me. She just can't stand that
I'm in charge of me and she isn't.

While we were staying with my in-laws,
I spoke about a new flavor of ice cream stating out loud how great
I thought it was. A few days later, my mother-in-law purchased
a container of this ice cream. After announcing that morning
that we would be leaving their home two days earlier than expected,
which was not received nicely (we had stayed over a week, and they
never once offered to take their grandchildren to a park or any
other outing), my husband went to get some of the new ice cream
after dinner, but could not find it in the cellar freezer.
Two days later, as I promised my husband I would, I found the container
of ice cream wrapped in a non-see-through bag, on the bottom shelf,
stuffed behind a frozen turkey!!! As I see it, the main issue
with in-laws is control. If they can't have it, they'll make
your life miserable, but at least it's your life!

I always invite my in-laws over my
house for dinner and to visit. They have only been over our
house a total of 3x since we got married and bought our house (and
it has been a year now!). Anyway, my mother-in-law always
comments on how we never invite them over! When the truth
is, we do, and she always seems to have something better to do I
guess, because she says she has plans!

My mother-in-law is just awful!
First of all, we are different religions and nationalities, so of
course we disagree on just about everything including traditions.
My husband and I had a beautiful wedding (following my religion).
My husband doesn't like his religion anyway, so I was lucky to not
have a problem as far as following my religion for both our wedding
and raising our future children. But, his mother did.
But, it's our wedding, and our kids, so it's our choice.

She criticizes everything I do, and I do feel as though my husband
could defend me a lot more often than he does. But, of course,
he is close to his mother, so he hardly ever says anything, except
for religion. He agrees with me in front of her on that.
She believes that (in her original country) when a guy proposes
to a girl, the mother of the guy proposing is supposed to know about
it first, even before the person he is proposing to knows.
This makes no sense at all to me, since I am the one he is asking
to marry, not her!

And, she also believed that she should be the one to pick out my
engagement ring! Luckily, my husband didn't agree with that either.
So, he picked it out himself, and I am glad cuz it came from his
heart. I told him that if he had his mother pick it out, I
would have made him return it and pick out another one, because
I think that is wrong because it should only be either him or myself
and no one else! Again, my husband agreed with me on this,
and didn't do what she expected him to do, and so she didn't talk
to us for 2 wks! Immature and stupid! Also, on top of
that, she was mad cuz she claimed the engagement was totally unexpected!
Which was kind of hard to believe, since we had already been going
steady for 2 years, and he told me how he always told his mother
how he knew I was "the one" right from the beginning!

Anyway, she tried to get me to do our wedding the way she wanted
it (her way) which, since we were entirely paying for it, should
be done the way we want it, and she shouldn't have a say in it!
We just basically disagree on everything!! We don't fight,
just disagree.

She isn't so bad, now that we are married, but sometimes, of course,
she can still say and do things that make me very mad! She
never got her license, nor did her husband. So, whenever she
needs a ride, which is quite often, of course she calls us and she
expects us to drop everything to be her taxi!

Not to mention, she is very unappreciative as well. Sometimes,
I feel as though she is the "wife"! I am very happily married,
by the way, this is just the only thing my husband and I sometimes
argue about. Even though he does agree with me sometimes,
he doesn't always let his mother know that, because he has no backbone!

Anyway, getting back to my mother in-law - it was always important
to me to be close to my mother-in-law, but she is so impossible
to get close to! I have done so many favors for her that I
can't tell you how many times I did things for her (hardly ever
being able to say no) and of course she didn't even say, "thank-you"!
I also buy her things that she likes, just to try to be nice to
her, and try to get close to her, and kinda put the past behind
us. And she is just impossible to get close to!

My husband tells me all the time that she really does like me, and
says she tells him all the time that I am hard to get close to,
because I won't let her be
close to me! Which, by the way, is the complete opposite.
The funny thing is, her other daughter- in-law she is really close
to, and they have more disagreements than we have, but yet she seems
to be close to her for some strange reason. She has no consideration
for others, and doesn't have manners.

I know it's terrible to talk about my mother-in-law like this, but
it really bothers me that she can't be anything like my husband.
I actually was told by the other daughter-in-law that she talks
about me when I am not around! Her other daughter-in-law can't
stand her either!

I really don't even understand how my husband turned out so well
brought up, and sweet with manners, and a lot of appreciation for
everything I do for him, and just basically anything and everything
he would do for me or anyone! While his mother is the opposite!
And how he could be so close to his mother when they are so VERY
different!

As far as the wedding, she criticized everything, and she was the
only one to do that. Everyone else agreed that our wedding
was beautiful. She had told me before the wedding that I am
too obsessed with Royal blue, and I picked too much of that color
for our wedding. I said, "well it is my favorite color!"
And she said, "I know, but everything's blue!"
Well, my husband and I paid for the entire wedding, and we liked
it, and that's all that matters! The only thing we agreed to do
for her, well, actually my husband agreed to this, is to have prime
rib because she believes in impressing her family with expensive
meals and fancy weddings! He agreed that this was wrong, too,
but let her win on this one. I told her, if people were just
coming to the wedding for the prime rib, then I wouldn't want them
there at all, because it's not very nice, and obviously they should
just go to our wedding for us, not for the meal! And she told
me I didn't understand, because weddings are just supposed to be
that way! Anyway, the wedding is over with, which, unfortunately,
it was over way too fast. But, the only good thing about it
is that I don't have to hear about that from her anymore.

Now we have other problems. She calls us 3x a week, early
in the morning on weekends, and very late at night on weekdays,
and I think that is very rude. When I answer the phone half
asleep, she apologizes for waking me up, but yet still does it.
I believe she is doing it on purpose just to spite me and get me
mad, but my husband claims she just forgets it's too early for us!
Also, whenever I pick up the phone, she doesn't even talk to me
she, just asks me how I am doing and if her son is there!
How rude, huh? I am supposed to be her daughter-in-law, and
she never will have more than a 5 second conversation with me!

In the past, she opened up our mail that still got sent to her house,
after my husband and I bought a house. For some reason, some
of the mail still went to her house (where he lived before we were
married!). Then, she would lecture us on our bills, which
is really none of her business!!

Well, I guess I will wrap this up, since I typed so much already,
but anyway, as you can see, there are a lot of things that aggravate
me, and a lot of things we disagree on. But, yet, I still
somehow wanna be close to her. Sometimes she can be nice to me,
and actually sometimes I think she is trying to change for the better.
And then the next day, it's like back to the same old ways.

Please HELP me and give me some ADVICE!! I don't know what
to do!! And as long as I am married to her son for the rest
of my life, I need to somehow build a good relationship with her,
since she will be my mother-in-law for as long as I am alive!
I just wish she would try as hard as I have to get close to her!
Thanks so much for your time and for any advice you might have for
me! At this point, I am desperate to find any other things
I could do or say to get her to be closer to me! Do you think
it is hopeless? I also would like to do this for my husband,
because he means everything to me. And I know it is also important
to him that my mother-in-law and I are close, because it would eliminate
some disagreements with his mother and I. Thanks so much!!

***NOTE: Please feel free to respond to this (using our mother-in-law
stories submission page) if you have any advice to share.
Reference this story as "desperate daughter-in-law" in
your response.

Response ReceivedBelow is a Story Previously Run
Along With a Recent Response Received

My future mother-in-law is so very
overbearing and manipulating and controlling, and my future husband
is so very clueless, I am embarrassed. She has a lot a lot of money
and loves to throw it around and show it off. She wanted me
to have my wedding gifts sent to her house, and she was going to
put them out on display and have a "sip and see" where people
came over and had a drink and checked out all the presents!
Has anyone ever heard of this? I think it is so very tacky.
AND even though we put their names on the invitation (because they
are paying for half the wedding) she wanted HER address printed
on the back of the envelopes. Have you ever???? AND,
a bunch of her friends are throwing us an engagement party, and
she didn't even ask me, but one night we went over there and she
had all these gifts lined up, and SHE had already bought the hostess
gifts that are supposed to come from me and SHE wrote the poem to
go into the gift!!! Have you ever heard such shameless controlling
behavior???? I am going NUTS!!! If anyone has advice,
please send!

NOTE: Please feel free to respond to this (using our mother-in-law
stories submission page) if you have any advice to share. Reference
this story as the "wedding from hell" in your response.

RESPONSE: Golly, seems like just yesterday
(but that was nearly 15 years ago). It doesn't get better.
My mother-in-law wanted to give me china for our wedding gift.
I told her my pattern. She told me I picked too expensive,
and that I would HAVE to choose a lesser pattern. I told her
no, I LIKED my pattern, just give me LESS of it, because I'd rather
cherish a few pieces than choose something else. When my first
child was born, she told me she had, "checked out the diaper services"
and that that's the way to go. I said that was nice that she
called around, but that I had made another choice (disposables).
She had all the info on bottle feeding schedules, I chose breastfeeding....Every
step of the way, maintain your integrity, and don't think you have
to please the woman. (Also, she wanted the great gift display
too - I said I didn't plan on that - that what with all the wedding
rush, it'd be too too much to try to fit in). Good luck. !
Stay true to yourself and it is not impolite to be assertive.

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